I appreciate your response and practical suggestions. Perhaps if I answer some of your questions, you could respond with some additional insight.

The efforts to resolve the depression and PTSD have been semi-successful. The client is on antidepressant medication and is less distressed and self-critical, although her symptoms are still present.

Yes, the client wants to work on the attachment issue, though it brings up fear and ambivalence.

Yes, I believe she does have an idealized belief in being loved in a maternal/motherly way. This is something she desperately wants to have in her real life, since she did not get it as a child. She truly feels a hungry, separate, child-like part of herself who needs to feel safe and cared for.

In therapy, she has been working on developing a maternal sense of self. This is happening gradually, although this snse of self is still shaky and small. She has internalized many negative cognitions from her parents growing up, and that critical "parent" presently holds more power than the "good parent" she is working to develop. Despite hard work on her part, she continues to need verbal reinforcement from me for feelings of safety and comfort.

I have mixed feelings about her request for hugs. Since she was deprived of physical comfort as a child, and/or physical comfort from an adult turned into sexual abuse, it would be nice for her to be able to accept the safe, non-abusive, maternal comforting she craves.

On the other hand, it would likely strengthen her connection to me and make eventual termination more difficult.